Ending Hunger Takes Time by Norma Malfatti

When Bread for the World started producing Leaven, a newsletter for Covenant Churches,
I was three years old. Almost 30 years have gone by since that first
issue and, as I have come to realize after reading sixteen years of
hunger facts, bulletin inserts, reflections, activity ideas and so much
more, many things have changed. However many things remain the same
regarding the plight of poor and hungry people in the world.

In 1980 people in developing countries used 85% of their income on
food. Today that figure is about 80% - an improvement to be sure, but
only a small one, and with the rising food prices and global hunger
crisis, that number is rising every day.

During the mid-1980s 500 million people were food-insecure and one
person died every second from hunger and hunger-related illnesses.
Today nearly a billion people are food-insecure yet at the same time
one person dies only every three seconds from hunger. Considering the
increase in world population since the 80s, it is a major feat to have
curbed the number of deaths due to hunger.

In 1985, an article talked about African women boiling grass to
provide food for their families. Today, in Haiti, people are making
mud-pies for dinner because there are no other options.

So, what really has improved for the hungry in Bread for the World’s
34 years? Are the tireless efforts of Bread’s staff, 2,500 member
churches and 60,000+ members all for naught? Despite the bleak
statistics of hunger today, we must not forget what Bread for the
World’s focus is – both immediate assistance AND long term solutions.

Despite the world growing by a third since 1980 the mortality rate
from hunger is, in fact, lower. Immediate assistance has helped to
curtail that mortality rate due to hunger while the long-term solutions
have been created and implemented. And when those solutions have been
found, it takes years to see the results of that work. Take, for
instance, the Global Poverty Act, Bread for the World’s Offering of Letters focus this year.

The Global Poverty Act was inspired by the first Millennium Development Goal of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger. The Global Poverty Act,
seeks to put current US foreign assistance programs into a
comprehensive strategy involving trade policy, debt cancellation, and
private sector efforts to ensure that existing US pro¬grams are more
effective and efficient. The legislation calls for a strategy to
determine the right mix of aid, trade and debt policies and investment.
While the bill has already passed the House it has yet to pass the
Senate. If the bill does not pass before the Senate breaks, the bill
will die and the next Congress will need to start again if the new
president doesn’t make it a priority of his administration.

If the bill is successful and it passes before the end of this
Congress, and President Bush signs it, it would not be implemented
until next year and even then it will take time to coordinate and
strategize a cohesive and efficient foreign assistance program that
includes every area of our government. Once the strategy is created and
implemented, it still takes time to see the effects of the strategy.
Teaching new and better agricultural techniques takes more than just a
one day seminar; roads to market aren’t built overnight; health care is
more than childhood vaccinations; and we won’t see the full benefits of
children entering the educational system until they have graduated,
sought employment, worked, had a family of their own to pass on their
knowledge, etc, etc. That could take more than 20 years when talking
about the children of today. It will take at least a generation to see
significant improvements, something we are already seeing from the
1980s – lower mortality rates!

So, contrary to what we all want, ending hunger and poverty is not
an overnight fix. Yes, immediate assistance of food and other aid is an
overnight solution, but we must wait to see the full of long-term
solutions, for effects of hunger and poverty to be reversed, for
communities and families to climb out of poverty.

We must indeed have faith to end hunger.

____Norma Malfatti is serving as an intern in Bread's Church Relations
Department. She wrote this reflection for The Beatitude
Society's blog.

She is a Master’s of Divinity student at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg and is also finishing her Master of Arts in Public Affairs and Policy from the Nelson A. Rockefeller School of Public Affairs and Policy. She has worked this past year with Lutheran Advocacy Ministry in Pennsylvania and spent this past January at the Lutheran World Federation/ELCA Ecumenical Experience in Geneva, Switzerland where her class focused on interfaith effort.

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Bread for the World is a collective Christian voice urging our nation’s decision makers to end hunger at home and abroad. By changing policies, programs and conditions that allow hunger and poverty to persist, we provide help and opportunity far beyond the communities in which we live. Bread for the World is a 501(c)(4).